


But You Can Distinguish Miles from Coltrane

by summerstorm



Category: Americal Idol RPF
Genre: Community: cliche_bingo, M/M, Paranoia, Rare Pairing, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-31
Updated: 2009-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-05 11:03:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>So Kara may want to get it on with him, that much has been clear for weeks, and he may sometimes want to get it on with her for about a millisecond before he sees or hears or thinks about Kris, and it's just not gonna happen, sex with Kara, not any time soon, because he's so into Kris he can't possibly be into anyone else for long enough to get them off.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	But You Can Distinguish Miles from Coltrane

**Author's Note:**

> For my [](http://community.livejournal.com/cliche_bingo/profile)[**cliche_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/cliche_bingo/) 'rare pairings' square.

He has to give it to Slezak this time, because some of the things he implies are actually _true_ to scary degrees. For instance, Kara's comment about girls all over America wanting to get into Matt's pants? Not _just_ a bad pun.

It _is_ a bad pun, yeah, and she probably does it partly _for_ the bad pun; Matt has some experience in that field and punning feels awesome no matter how terrible the result is, and Kara must have been waiting all week to use this one. The entire panel of judges gets a kick out of working song titles into their critique, and Matt can understand that. So Kara does it for the sake of wordplay, yeah, and she also does it partly because she genuinely seems to believe Matt has a shot at grasping the female demographic by passing himself off as a modern and less alcoholic version of a Rat Packer—the whole oxymoronic laid-back but carefully put-together demeanor, a little safe but with a certain spark.

Honestly, though, he thinks Kara's making a grave marketing mistake, and that's the last third of the equation. From Matt's experience, some people do go for the whole Sinatra appeal, but for one thing, Matt doesn't have Sinatra's voice, or Sinatra's anything else, and for another, the concept is kind of passé by now. It doesn't have that wide of an audience. _He_ doesn't have that wide of an audience. It's not modesty; he doesn't look at himself in the mirror and think he's sex on legs, but there's the occasional performance or pictures with the crooked smirk and the fedoras where he honestly thinks he'd probably do himself. It's not even about him. It's about Kara, who, where Matt is concerned, has extrapolated her own _crush_ or taste in men or whatever it is about Matt that appeals to her onto the wide public, and the public is not responding that well. It sucks, but it's true, and when Kara says that she's sure a lot of girls would like to get it on with him after his performance, what she means is _she_ does, and she knows she's not alone.

She also winks at him the second commercials kick in, in case it wasn't clear how she meant it, and manages to convey with body language only that her dressing room is open for business if Matt wants to take care of it.

Matt _kind of_ wants to take care of it, in a way, but he wouldn't let himself do that. It's not that he doesn't think Kara's hot, because she is, and it's not exactly that he doesn't find her attractive, though the whole preying thing she's been doing since auditions puts him off a little. He doesn't really get ogled that much, so that's nice, but he draws the line at being toyed with by someone who has the upper hand in not just that department.

The thing is, he also kind of wants to find Kris and drag him into the least comfortable secluded place possible in the building and blow him, and once he's thought of that he doesn't want to have sex with Kara anymore.

Matt wishes he drew the line at fucking anyone who has the upper hand in any aspect of his life, but that would probably negate his entire _thing_ with Kris, and he doesn't really want that canceled out, not yet. It's going to happen eventually, he knows that—Kris is taken, for all intents and purposes, and any flings he may have have their days counted. His open relationship is more a way of life than a last effort to fix his marriage; Kris has never used those exact words, but Matt's seen him with Katy and can tell that their vows still stand, and he doubts either one of them has any interest in pursuing a permanent polyamorous situation.

So Matt's been trying to find his footing in the land of denial lately. At this point it's either pretending he doesn't have feelings for Kris, which is pretty hard because he does have them, though he still tries, or pretending Kris returns those feelings for as long as their thing lasts. That's easier, because _maybe_—he can misconstrue signals, girls do that all the time and fool themselves pretty well, right? So he should be able to do the same thing. And that's where Kara comes in—or doesn't come in, as the case may be. Kara's hot, and doesn't seem clingy or dangerous at all, and is attractive enough that if his situation was any different he'd fuck her six ways from Sunday, but he'd tell people. Some people. It's not like there's a clause in his contract that says he can't fuck the judges, and dirty secrets are not really Matt's thing, so he'd tell some people. He'd tell Misha, next time he saw her. He'd tell Anoop. He'd tell Danny, because Matt likes being liked and Danny's the last person he has breakfast with who doesn't seem to like him—ridiculous as it may be, Matt's certain talking about sex with girls would go a long way towards tipping the balance to his favor. He'd probably tell his buddies at home, too. And he'd tell Kris.

Kris wouldn't care.

And yeah, Matt can justify that to his stupid, dependent self, assume Kris doesn't care because this isn't exclusive in the first place. For what it's worth, Matt kind of still has a girlfriend, and telling Matt not to do what Kris himself is doing would be that turning point where double standards are uncovered and ultimatums are issued and the whole thing either turns into a screwball comedy from the 50s or ends in Hamlet-type tragedy, which would be fucking pathetic on a number of levels. It's probably blasphemous to someone that he's comparing a stupid fling with a married guy to Shakespeare, too, but it's not like the stupid fling doesn't _feel_ like Shakespeare sometimes, what with Adam slipping out of his practically-asexual-within-the-mansion façade and looking at Kris like he's a spread in a dirty magazine about three times a day, or Danny alternating between acting all holier-than-thou at everyone else and trying to make nice when they notice.

But Kris wouldn't tell Matt he cares about Matt possibly screwing Kara regularly, because Kris _wouldn't_ care. That's where Matt hardly loses or loses really hard. There's feeling like you're in the worst possible spot of the triangle, the C where it goes ABC, and then there's feeling like you're just barely holding on to one extreme of the hypotenuse, the C where it goes AB_has_ a girlfriend, if he can't even focus on her for the two and a half minutes a day he talks to her on the phone. Five years since the last time, and it has to happen _now_, at the worst possible moment. But that wasn't enough for the universe, because then it decided to put him in a room together with the guy in question, and make Matt realize there was a wedding band on his left hand. All in a day's work for the universe. A fucking gold star for the universe.

Katy is blonde and perky and ridiculously cute, and the only thing wrong with her Matt can see is her hopes for Kris making it into the top 36 are so low they're pushing up daisies, and even that means nothing because, for all her disgusting adorableness, she's more wary of the organization than distrustful of her husband's talent, and it's not like Matt can fault someone for having a brain.

He actually likes her, in case wanting to fuck her husband wasn't bad enough, and when they invite Matt out to lunch Matt doesn't have plans, so he says yes. He thinks maybe seeing Kris act _married_ is exactly what he needs to get his head out of his butt and either break up with or stop ignoring his girlfriend, even if it's only to have a steady source of sex if he makes it onto the show.

Halfway through lunch, when Matt's almost done with the story of that time the mayor of K-zoo showed up at one of his gigs while high on painkillers, Katy leans forward over the table, shares a look with Kris, and they both turn to Matt for about a second before she says to Kris, "You want him?"

Her eyes move to mean the exact same question; Matt's pretty sure she's only speaking up for his sake and Kris doesn't need the words to understand her. It all feels pretty detached, the whole exchange, but Kris still shuts his lids, telltale way of showing light embarrassment, and then he takes a deep breath, licks his lips, and says, "Yeah."

Matt observes from the sidelines, feeling like the proverbial deer caught in headlights, and then he mutters, belatedly, "Wait, what?"

Katy ignores his question. She squints and purses her lips at Matt like she's—_inspecting_ him, somehow—and then shrugs and says with a half smile, "Okay, all yours."

In case the conversation wasn't weird enough already, Kris says, "Thanks", and proceeds to give her something heavier than a peck of agreement but lighter than full-on making out. They _kiss_ on the verge of being inappropriate in public, but not quite. For about twenty seconds, probably more, since Matt only started counting when he stopped frowning at the randomness of it all.

He coughs, and Kris lets go of Katy's neck and leans back on the booth, grinning widely.

"So he climbed on the piano, and then what happened?" Katy prompts, all sunshine and rainbows, and Matt finishes the story, and that's that.

It's not like Matt expected there to be _more_ than that, but they don't bring up their deal or whatever it is again, so Matt's left wondering if it's effective immediately and whether he has to wait for Kris to initiate things or he's allowed to climb into Kris's bed at night and molest him. It makes him feel a bit like prey, too, knowing someone's noticed him—noticed how he looks at Kris, maybe, or noticed him flinch at Kris's touch at some point, noticed _something_—and might just be zeroing in on him at a distressingly imperceptible speed.

He decides not to push it, but no one else is pushing it either, so he keeps things vague with his girlfriend, so vague their relationship resembles a hotline by the time Matt's semifinal rolls around, and then he fucks up _Viva la Vida_ and gets voted off, except you can't really be voted off if you're not yet in, but whatever. It feels like a kick in the shin.

He's a bit pissed and not that good at hiding it, but he still goes out to celebrate with Kris and commiserate with Mishavonna and everyone else, and he ends up sitting next to Katy. At one point he's leaning back on his chair, one hand on his thigh, when Katy's fingers crawl over it and twine themselves with Matt's.

He smiles awkwardly at her, because he's still not sure how you're supposed to interact with a girl who knows and is okay with you wanting to screw her husband.

"You'll be fine," she says, and it's all a bit worthless. Kris _made it_ and Matt butchered a song he's actually really fond of and Katy's so giddy and giggly with optimism that _everything_ must seem okay to her right now, so her saying maybe Matt will be too falls into the area of genuine yet completely useless and probably counterproductive encouragement.

Matt shrugs with his mouth. "Thanks," he mumbles, and she laughs, practically a whimper, and Matt wonders if she's had baby-you-made-it-into-the-top-twelve sex with Kris yet. She probably has, because her excitement seems completely asexual and if Matt was married to Kris, he'd be on the edge of his seat waiting to get somewhere private and fuck him.

Then he remembers that getting somewhere private is a given and fucking Kris is not entirely out of the question, and his breath catches for a second and he almost chokes on his beer. When he looks over at Kris, Kris is deep in conversation with Jesse, fingers threading through Katy's hair where her head's resting on his shoulder, but he glances back like he _knows_ Matt is looking, like he knows what Matt's thinking about and it doesn't freak him out at all. Maybe Matt's not that unlucky, after all—Kris is a nice guy and doesn't tease him on purpose, probably doesn't even _know_ how to tease despite having a wife who lets him sleep with other people. Instead he diverts his eyes all coy, except again it doesn't look like coyness, it looks like freaking _observing_, like he's considering something, like he hasn't already had two weeks and a half to make a decision and is just now realizing that hey, he could just put that guy out of his misery.

Kris turns to him once Jesse slips away, and he reaches out to stretch his hand out over Matt's thigh, making him flinch, and says in earnest, "You okay?"

Matt chuckles, a puff of breath. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Kris tilts his head to the right and nods lightly, remarking the obvious. Matt _could_ not be okay, but that doesn't mean he wants to talk about it. It's bad enough he did what he did to himself and to Coldplay in front of millions of people.

"You know you're getting into wildcards, right?" Kris says, and it's just like Kris to have hopes for Matt instead of ever having hopes for himself. He should get that checked. "I mean, I don't know if that's what you want, but Kara _likes_ you." Kris rolls his eyes up like it's amazing how much Kara likes Matt, and Matt wonders for a second if maybe he should be offended before Kris squeezes his thigh comfortingly and Matt realizes that's just Kris's way of emphasizing his point.

Matt forces himself to smile at him and then Kris turns to Jesse and is all sorry, what did you say, and Matt's sort-of-girlfriend appears around the corner and asks Megan to explain her tattoo to her and Matt's mind boggles because he totally forgot his sort-of-girlfriend was there, and Katy must notice because she notices _everything_ and she chuckles and says, "Your date's adorable, by the way," and Matt realizes that, Kris or no Kris, he really needs to break up with this girl.

Instead, he rides in the cab with her back to her hotel, walks her to her room, and kisses her goodnight. She raises an eyebrow at him and he smiles like they're fifteen and he doesn't expect to get past first base, but she doesn't push it; he leans sideways against the wall, and she smiles back and closes the door. Matt grimaces at no one in particular, just the situation, or maybe he's grimacing at himself and his inability to think things through and then act on his conclusions rather than put them away for storage like they're already out of date. Which they're not.

That's what he's thinking about as he makes his away across the lobby and gets back into the cab, sprawls over the backseat, and thanks the driver for waiting. Then he gives out his address and suddenly his life feels like prom night, like he's been dating a girl for four months and social customs dictate today's the day she puts out. And that, _that_ is what American Idol's brought into his life so far.

It really doesn't get more pathetic than this.

Eventually he gets to his hotel room, and finds Kris sitting on his bed. There's an open Fray CD box that Matt's pretty sure belongs to him on the mattress, and Kris is holding his iPod—Matt's iPod classic, the one he doesn't carry around—with one hand and a bud near his ear with the other, like he's looking into the music rather than paying his full attention to the big picture.

Kris stands up when he hears the door shutting and turns around to face Matt, which puts Kris in exactly the right position for Matt to walk across the room and kiss him.

"Okay, this is getting ridiculous," Matt says, and does just that.

Kris stays still at first, just breathes easy, contemplative, and then his tongue swiftly parts Matt's lips and there's a hand on Matt's waist and another one on his shoulder and he's being pushed down on the bed. Matt's a little baffled by his inability to keep track of what's happening; suddenly Kris has no t-shirt on anymore and is straddling him and Matt has to rearrange the position of his elbows to avoid falling backwards and hitting his head somewhere hard.

His shirt is halfway off before he remembers he's wearing one, and Kris's hands are rough where they meet skin, more certain than Matt expected Kris to be—like he knows what he's doing, or at least knows what he wants to do and no one's going to stop him from doing it, and fuck, Matt is more than okay with that.

His zipper gets stuck when Kris tries to undo it; Kris slides off, lets Matt deal with it. It takes a while, slows things down.

"I feel like a consolation prize," Kris muses, pretty randomly. "I hate consolation prizes."

Matt scowls at Kris, because this is not the time to put things into context, and the zipper is just - fucking - _there_, undone. "I don't. Consolation prizes are the footing America's built upon," he says, faster than he intended, and Kris laughs, at him or with him, Matt can't tell, and then Kris is grabbing the iPod and fumbling with it.

"Do you want me to—" Kris asks, somehow unable to turn it off, which is what Matt assumes he's trying to do.

"I don't care," says Matt, cutting him off, and takes the iPod from Kris, "I want your hands back on me." He throws it on the other bed, hitting the pillow. It's still under guarantee, and all his music's on his laptop anyway. It doesn't even matter. He takes off his shirt.

"You're such a gentleman," Kris says with a scowl.

"When I'm not dying of sexual frustration, yes, as a matter of fact, I am," says Matt, reaching for Kris's belt. It comes undone without another hitch, and then Kris is sliding down to his knees on the floor and wrapping his adorable, adorable thin lips around Matt's cock, and Matt stops giving a fuck about American Idol.

-

 

He does get a wild card, somehow. He thinks the experience would have been much more satisfying if Kris hadn't pulled him aside backstage just before the announcements and said, "About the consolation prize thing—"

"I compartmentalize," Matt had said, and then had tried to get away, because this was not the time to get turned on, especially not just because Kris was stroking the skin on the inside of his elbow. That would be pathetic, and he might lose coordination and fall down the stairs if—when—he got picked out.

"No, I mean, should I expect that kind of nonsense from you in the future?" Kris had wondered, completely serious. "Or was it just a one-time deal?"

Matt had chuckled and declared, "I don't think you'll be seeing much more of me, Allen."

"I'm pretty sure Kara spontaneously orgasmed at some point during your just-sitting-there last night. You are so getting in."

Which, as it turns out, he does, but Kris sounded so sure about it Matt kind of already knew, and that sort of muffles Matt's enthusiasm.

Still, it's a forgivable offense, or it becomes one when Kris pins him to the bed and lowers himself on Matt's cock later, to celebrate.

Wild card week is where the weird touching thing Kris adopts starts, a few days before the show, and Matt thinks it has a lot to do with his working on the arrangement for _Who's Lovin' You_ on piano. At some point Kris decides he's not gonna let Matt do to Michael Jackson what he did to Chris Martin, and starts showing up whenever there's even the tiniest chance Matt might be rehearsing. Occasionally, early in the week, he brings in a small army to back him up—Jesse, Kendall, Matt's not sure who Misha shows up for. Anoop pops up a couple of times, too, with a completely ridiculous choreography for _My Prerogative_ that forces Matt to get off the stool and either dance it or screw it up some more, depending on your perspective.

He tries a more upbeat version of the song on piano when Jesse's in the room, and the way she moves to it makes Matt feel like the keys he's pressing are directly connected to strings within her soul, and he can't help but be entranced by it. Entranced and a little turned on.

"You know I have a wife, right?" Kris mentions casually to his left.

"You introduced us, yes."

"No, I mean, I have a wife, and you can—" Kris gestures vaguely towards where Anoop and Jesse are moving like some kind of human puzzle. "You can sleep with Jesse," Kris points out, "or whoever".

"I don't want to 'sleep' with Jesse, 'or whoever'," Matt says, too quickly, and Kris remarks, "You're leering at her," and Jesse hears him and says, "I'm too much woman for you, Giraud," and Kris snorts and says, "But you'd do him, wouldn't you?" and Jesse looks him up and down, thank god for the piano, and makes a face that Matt thinks is supposed to mean _yeah, sure, why not_ before turning back to Anoop. It could end there, but then Kris wriggles his eyebrows at him like an idiot, and Matt shakes his head and says, "I'd rather do _you_," and Kris licks his lips in concentration, and that may or may not be where all, or at least a few, of Matt's problems begin. To list:

1\. This is not the kind of affair a husband leaves his wife for,  
2\. This _is_ the kind of affair where Matt should fuck his girlfriend while thinking about his girlfriend, and  
3\. He's failing at #2 and kind of bothered by #1.

The other issue with #2—one that in all logic denies #1, but maybe Matt's just stupid or an egomaniac or something—is how Kris seems to really, _really_ like Matt's piano-playing. Matt knows he's good at it, and he knows some people get a kick out of not just listening but also watching him play, watching his fingers dance and his wrists turn and swirl and his forearms cross swiftly and somewhat beautifully over the keys, and Matt will be damned if Kris isn't one of those people. It's not just admiration or picking up tricks; Kris licks his lips in different ways, or accompanies the licking with different gestures, and Matt may have taken to categorizing them in his head. When Kris looks at Matt's fingers as he plays, his lids drop—nothing, barely a millimeter, but in a way that's still noticeable to Matt—in addition to this slight misty-eyedness, like Kris is too polite to let it show on his face that he'd like to fuck the living daylights out of someone based on the way that someone plays piano, and yet.

That's how Kris looks when he sometimes lets a hand ghost over Matt's under the pretense of following the movement, but ends up stroking the skin between his knuckles like he's actually thinking about stroking his balls.

There are (manly) hugs, too, and more often than not an arm over Matt's shoulders as a means for Kris to take up less space next to him, and when they're sitting on the piano stool Matt doesn't mind, Matt's all right with that, but sometimes Kris does that when they're just sitting next to each other somewhere in front of people, and it freaks Matt out a bit. He's not cold and he doesn't hate touching, but the closest thing to a date with a guy he's ever been on was watching a baseball game in a bar with someone he was planning on having sex with afterwards, and they made no pantomime of holding hands or anything—considering the way the guy in question kept making fists at the screen, if Matt had even tried to do something stupid like that, the guy might've cracked his bones.

Besides, Kris and Matt, they're not _dating_, they're just friends who do each other as a bonus, and Matt's not sure where the touching fits in. Is it part of the friendship, or is it an extension of their bedroom activities? That's what Matt needs to know—what aspect he should categorize it in—to accept it, to reciprocate, even. There's already a lot of this—this _whatever_ with Kris—that Matt doesn't understand, beginning with the very, very big and mysteriously easy to overcome obstacle of Kris's marriage, and he doesn't want to add little extra uncertainties on top of that.

Wild card week is, overall, when things between them start _moving_. It's a bit sad, because most of Matt's excitement relates directly to Kris rather than steam from his chance to live the Idol experience per se, but he does try to make the most of both, regardless of any switch in priorities.

-

 

Living in Hollywood is a funny thing; it keeps throwing regrets at you.

Matt assumes he has a few months ahead of him here in LA. He's optimistic about making the Idol tour, and after that, whether it is to make a record or to try to get a record deal, he's going to have to move here, at least temporarily. Potential media following aside, this is his chance to indulge the side of him that's into men without small-town repercussions. The way things have turned out, he could even have asked Adam to mentor him in it or something, now that the first leg of the Idol journey is done. He could have _waited_. Instead of that, he took his chances and let himself watch Kris perform, linger on his arms and his jaw and his eyelashes. Matt's kind of what people call a serial monogamist, except technically he's cheating on his girlfriend and has some serious trouble giving a damn about it, which puts him on pretty low moral ground.

He considers that, considers talking to Adam about being out in LA. Asking what it's like, at least. Maybe when they move into the Idol mansion, since they'll have a curfew and some time to waste. It just seems silly, though, because Matt's not looking for a gay experience—Matt's looking for something a little more private, a little more concentrated on two people rather than on the social aspect of it. Clubbing and sleeping with closeted married businessmen is not something Matt's ever felt he was missing out on, and he doesn't feel like that now.

Kris isn't out, exactly, but he's not hiding either. Matt thinks Kris is somewhat like him, except married and in love with his wife. Maybe just loving his wife, but not in love with her. Maybe it goes up and down, and Matt is the days between composing a song and being able to look at it without wanting to burn lyrics, arrangement and part of the brain that came up with them to the ground. Matt thinks Kris likes those days—likes the distraction, and not just being distracted. Having sex with Kris is not mechanical or impersonal—Kris is _Kris_, all the time. Even if the room is generic or the supply closet is dark, Matt never loses track of whose hand he's thrusting into, or whose voice is whispering ridiculous mockery into his ear. There's usually something about it that makes it present, self-aware, but doesn't take away any of the intensity.

He has sex with Kris because it's Kris rather than because it's sex, and Matt firmly believes that's why the gay scene per se wouldn't work for him. He's not looking for dick in his life, but he'll gladly take it if it's part of the full person package.

The thing is, it's not the full person package he's getting here. It shouldn't matter—Matt of all people should be able to bundle his expectations around the present, be into Kris the way he gets into a song and stays into it for as long as it lasts, never wishing it won't end or dreading the coda. He should pick up the rhythm of this and try to keep up with it instead of thinking about the circumstance or whether it's gonna last three (minutes) months or fifteen.

Try as he might, he still feels a bit unstable when room assignments are finalized and put a halt to his having Kris half a bed away every night.

"I guess you don't want me anymore," he mock-sobs, leaning sideways against the doorframe to Kris and Adam's room.

"I guess my wedding ring means I can't be screwing my gay roommate," Kris says, walking over to where Matt's standing and slipping his hands into Matt's back pockets. "Besides," he goes on, grazing Matt's lower lip with his teeth, pressing closer, "the other day I fell off my bed and landed on a pile of your clothes so high and cushiony I didn't even realize I was on the floor 'til morning."

Matt chuckles and closes the bare inch between their mouths. Hiding they are totally not. "I don't see how that's a bad thing," Matt says when they break apart.

"That's exactly my point," Kris remarks, and drags Matt in by his shirt to close the door behind him, and proceeds to christen his new bed, which is just all right by Matt.

The only problem is, afterwards Kris tries to _cuddle_. Not for long, Matt doesn't think, because they have to be at the studio in an hour, and not for the first time, and not for any sort of attempted romantic reasons. Matt actually loves feeling Kris's breath regain stability against the hollow of his neck, so he doesn't want this to _not_ happen, exactly.

It's just strange, sometimes, because this is the kind of thing you do in a relationship, and Matt still has trouble wrapping his head around this middle ground. If it was just cuddling, just extended physical contact after sex, just Kris's leg flung over his knees and his tongue licking lazy circles around his collarbone, Matt would easily tuck it in the friends-with-benefits box, or whatever the kids are calling it this week. It's walking out together that bothers him, or sneaking out into the pool at night without bothering to be stealth about it, or Kris's complete lack of subtlety, the way he'll look at Matt heavy-lidded across the living room and lick his lips slowly, meaningfully, like no one else can see him.

So they're not hiding, not at all, not from the staff or their handlers or any of the other contestants, and it's great that Kris is not ashamed of flinging himself on the couch next to Matt and snuggling his head into his chest or nuzzling his arm, or, when he's tired, twining their fingers together over Kris's thigh, too close to his crotch to be interpreted as _friendly_. It's not embarrassment, either; it's not feeling in the wrong—it may be fear, maybe, fear of a different sort of embarrassment, the kind you feel when you're left behind—but, whatever it is, sometimes Matt thinks he'd like a little privacy, fewer chances of being judged.

-

 

"There's something amusing about this situation," Adam says after pretending to skip but eavesdropping on the O'Reilly special from the kitchen, "isn't there?"

"What's amusing about people knowing you're—homosexual?" Mike asks, halfway between completely solemn, because this is such a serious issue, and honestly confused, except his curiosity is directed at the wrong thing.

"It's not a disgrace, Mike," Adam says offhandedly, "I'm not gonna jump off a cliff because of that. I'm not even gonna talk about it. I'm just saying, I'm getting flack for kissing a boyfriend, and I'm pretty sure Kris and Matt went upstairs for a quickie during commercials. It's hilarious. It's a misfortune. I should be the one getting laid while Dickwit O'Really tells the world I shouldn't."

Matt feels a little like the couch should do him a favor and swallow him, but Kris just chuckles and asks Adam flatly, "You need help with that?"

Adam cracks up, and Matt wonders when casually propositioning Adam became a regularity with Kris. "Just an observation," Adam says, and Matt raises an eyebrow.

"We're just better at keeping secrets," Matt points out.

Adam smirks, and Matt's just crossing his fingers for someone to change the subject before Adam chooses to reveal any of his still secret secrets when Danny shrugs and says in a noncommittal tone, "Adam wasn't even trying to keep that secret secret, though."

"Why would he?" Allison says firmly, and Matt's not sure whether she's actually thought it through or is just extremely naïve.

"I don't know," Mike says, "it's not really smart to come out in this business, is it? I think you guys," said looking at Kris and Matt, mostly Matt, and Kris follows Mike's gaze and suddenly everyone's looking at Matt, "are smart to be keeping this under wraps—as much as you are, I mean—and not just because Kris's married. Piece of advice, you should stop touching so much," Mike wrinkles his nose, "or people are gonna start wondering."

Matt feels like everyone's expecting him to say something, something determined and pretentious like 'the world's not ready for polyamory' or 'I'm not ashamed of what Kris and I have' or something, except he hasn't gathered the courage to ask Kris if that's what this is yet, so he can't actually say that. He feels the psychological pressure for about two seconds before Kris slings a leg over his and it's physical pressure he feels instead, Kris straddling him under the staring eyes of almost a dozen people.

"We're working so hard at hiding this already, though, aren't we?" Kris says audibly, and leans it to kiss Matt, flat on the mouth as a warning, first, and then parting Matt's lips with his tongue without about as much class as a ten-dollar hooker. Matt knows Kris is doing that on purpose, trying to be as unsubtle as he possibly can, which is kind of a lot, but no one's seen them kiss before—Matt isn't even sure he's ever been seen kissing a guy before—so he freezes, because he doesn't know how much of this he wants these guys to see. He's not a good actor, and kissing is kind of an intimate thing, and kissing Kris usually has sexual purposes, which makes Matt even more reluctant to share this with everyone in the room.

It's just—what if they laugh at him? What if they judge his technique or something? Kris squints at him and ducks down to nibble at his earlobe. It's just he's half-hard already and this is completely unclassifiable, makes him think he's gonna have to start working in percentages of normal relationship to figure out what he should and should not do around and to Kris.

Then Kris says into his ear, "It doesn't make an impact if you don't respond," and rolls his hips down, and oh, God, but Matt can't help covering Kris's thighs with his hands and pressing his thumbs into skin through the denim, a sort of request for Kris to try kissing him again.

"That's really not what I meant," Matt hears Mike say somewhere far away, his voice accompanied by footsteps.

"One down," Kris says against Matt's lips, and Matt has to chuckle, and he may or may not sigh when Kris decides he's had enough and slides off him, grabs his beer.

When he leans back, no one's looking anymore, of course, and if Matt holds himself back from wondering when his life got so difficult to sort out, it's actually even nice. Easy to pretend there's no circumstance.

-

 

When Kris starts hanging out with Adam and Allison, Matt feels a little jealous.

Ownership, legal rights, that's all an intellectual clusterfuck, and Matt can ignore it well enough while he's getting attention. When he's not getting attention, though, jealousy kicks in, and sometimes, weird as it may seem, it even has its perks. Watching Kris be himself around Adam and Allison makes Matt feel like a total douchebag, because they respond naturally to things Matt's always felt weird about, never known how to respond to.

Matt is not a douchebag. Really, he's not. Ask anyone. He's a bit of a dick sometimes, by accident, and some people have been known to find him irritating, but he's not a douchebag. He doesn't find pleasure in making people miserable. Annoying them when they can retaliate, yes, but long-term pain and suffering is just not his thing, and it's sort of an epiphany that of _course_, of course Kris is too fucking private—despite certain incidents here and there—for all the touching and poking and hugging to be anything other than basic friendly stuff. And Kris is Matt's friend, or was trying to be, maybe, and Matt may have shot him down without realizing it, and now he _feels_ like a douchebag.

He can reach out to Kris now that he knows, though, now that he's figured out where to classify Kris's obsession with physical contact, so he does. Gradually. It's almost idiotic, the way he tries to start off subtle but feels like he's failing anyway, even if it's just a pat on the back, or a comforting hand on Kris's knee. Kris winces a bit at first, proof that Matt's being horribly obvious about all of it, but Matt can't bring himself to care. It's another part of Kris he can have and has been missing, and he's not giving up on it just because it's a bit embarrassing.

In the meanwhile, Kris rehearses the first song he's doing on piano for the show, and Matt dies a little every time he sees Kris's face.

Kris sings low into the mike, not loud at it, and this song is _intimate_, and Kris seems to think that means he should blow the microphone and look like he's enjoying it.

Matt can't keep his touches friendly around something like that. His hand on Kris's elbow when Kris is done with the umpteenth run of this third arrangement means well, but then Kris's neck muscles stiffen as Kris starts playing again, and Matt can't stop his fingers from reaching out to touch that edginess, and then he can't stop himself from leaning over Kris's back and licking a line from his collarbone up to his chin, running a nail down along his arm.

Kris squirms under him, and sucks in a shaky breath.

Matt knows people think Kris is easily shocked, but it's incredibly difficult to make him squirm like this, to take him by surprise. Maybe Matt's just not the kind of person who takes people by surprise—maybe Matt still waits for Kris to initiate—but when he gathers the courage to attempt it, Kris usually molds unaffectedly into whatever Matt wants to do, and there's no element of pride, of feeling smug about having a certain effect on one Kris Allen.

So this isn't common, and the heat radiating off Kris's body before anyone's lost a single piece of clothing isn't common, and Kris leaning back against his chest, the music stopping suddenly, isn't common either.

Kris's head falls back, and his mouth looks debauched, so fucking tempting when Kris says, "You fucking cocktease," and proceeds to lick his lips with his eyes half closed, tongue gliding over teeth, wet and wanton.

"Am I?" Matt asks, genuinely curious. Kris swallows a chuckle, and his hand reaches back to settle on Matt's knee, crawl upwards.

Sometimes Matt feels like this is one-sided, like Kris is Kris but Matt could be anyone else, and then there are moments like this, when Kris looks sideways at him through his eyelashes, and his gaze _roadtrips_ over Matt's nose, mouth, chin, intense and focused, and Matt's dick goes from vaguely interested to rock hard in the span of time all that attention takes to sink in.

"You're a total asshole," Kris slurs as Matt starts working on his shirt buttons, starting at the bottom, running his hand across Kris's stomach, "you can't keep touching me like that."

Matt draws his hand away for a millisecond, but Kris grabs his wrist and covers Matt's fingers with his own, brings them back to his belly.

"I was trying to reciprocate," Matt murmurs when he realizes what Kris means, "to be _friendly_. You touch me all the time."

"Not on purpose. It's second nature for me." Matt opens Kris's shirt, leaves it hanging on his shoulders, and Kris lets out a moan when Matt pinches one of his nipples. "When you do it you're so aware of it. Conscious."

"Well, I wasn't trying to turn you on, consciously or not," Matt points out, dragging the shirt down Kris's back, letting his teeth graze all that skin as he rises to his feet, palms Kris's shoulder blades.

Matt drags the stool around so he can kneel between Kris's calves and Kris can lean back against the piano, get the shape of the keys plastered all over his back. Kris stands up and doesn't last long at all, spills down Matt's throat with his thighs tense under Matt's hand and Matt's fingers pressed up inside him, jaw unhinged and only the sound of deep, labored breathing dripping out of his lips.

Matt doesn't really get what this means until dress rehearsal, when Kris ups the innuendo to flat-out molestation of the microphone, and jerks every time his shoulders dare to slouch. It's not the first time Matt's watched him play piano, not even the first time Matt's seen him play this song, but the faces Kris makes as he goes, up there on the big screen for anyone who's not too busy to look past their own nose, are the most pornographic thing Matt has seen in his entire life, and he feels himself getting hard despite all the technicians and shit running past him backstage, making sure things are in order, totally missing everything Matt can't stop drinking in.

He still wants the other part, the friends thing, to become routine, or at least normal enough for Matt to experience it every now and then, so he tries to keep his hands to Kris whenever they're around other people—nothing stupid, just reaching out to let Kris know he's there—and Kris tries, he really seems to try, to get used to it, but Matt catches him taking in a deep breath or two more than once, like he needs to calm down, and Matt feels like a douchebag again, because maybe he just doesn't deserve it. He should have noticed sooner, before Kris got used to reaching out and getting nothing back.

During the results show, though, when they're the first two people back on the couch, he waits for the camera to roll away before setting a hand on Kris's back, indulging in the feel of hard muscle under the fabric of Kris's t-shirt. Kris is smiling, yelling at Megan, doesn't even notice at first, but Matt keeps his palm determinedly there and it only takes a few seconds for Kris to lean back against it, shudder when it slides down to the small of his back.

Matt hooks a couple fingers into the back loops of Kris's jeans, and enjoys every shudder when Kris shifts and Matt brushes skin, warm and present.

-

 

It's not gonna happen, because this kind of thing is always kept under wraps regardless of how many dozens of people know about it, but if Matt got asked how he managed to get so grotesquely in over his head without even realizing it, he'd flat-out admit he's something of an idiot.

It's not like he couldn't have thought about what was going on and made a rational decision. He chose not to, thus he now is unrequitedly head over heels for a married guy, therefore he is stupid. There's no way around it that won't badly tamper with the way people—friends, colleagues, potential networking connections—see him, so he has to accept it, cut his losses, and move on.

Which he would do, all three of those things, if he could figure out how to cut a rope that's imaginary and, for all purposes, only has one end. He can't walk up to Kris and say, "I think we should stop sleeping together," because Kris would look like a kicked puppy for the half second the message took to sink in and then comprehend it and say, "Okay," nonchalant as anything, and then Matt would have to jump him, thereby rendering his previous bout of courage worthless.

He's currently on his way across the studio, trying to find an empty dressing room to lie down for ten minutes, have a nightmare, and wake up from it in such a way that he'll start banging his head against the armrest, with some luck accidentally hitting wood and splinters and damaging his face so disgustingly it will have to be reconstructed by surgery, and no one will recognize him anymore. He'll tattoo that stupid Egyptian eye Adam has on his wrist all over his nose, paint it blue, travel to India, come back, and become a guru. Advise people not to get involved in situations they can see no healthy way out of, for their own good. Tell them he foresees a great danger in their future involving a wedding band and a glass of wine—a dangling hand. Poison. _Isn't It Romantic_ playing over and over like a broken record through the debris of a dead relationship.

At least he _knows_, he's painfully aware of things, and every rehab program says the first step to full recovery is accepting you have a problem. He's spent long enough playing jazz in random bars to meet his share of AA—A and not so A, really—attendees, and when they inevitably break their months-long clean run because their lives continue to be as unbearable as led them to the bottle, they tend to share a sob story or two. The parallels Matt can draw from those sob stories to his situation make him feel pretty grateful to his exhaustingly busy schedule, or else he'd get up at night and jump off a cliff.

This is what's going on now: he's leaning back against a wall in a hallway, having stepped to the side so someone carrying a huge plasma screen can get through without breaking anyone's skull. He has two commercial breaks to go before he sings _Part-Time Lover_, which held no connotations until he started tweaking the lyrics and realized what the song was about. By now he's gone over it so many times it feels meaningless again, though, so he's not worried. It's a fun song to do, and the last thing he wants to do now is go over it again, even in his head, because then he might _think_ about it, and frustration is not a nice feeling.

Kris sang earlier tonight, and watching him from backstage was that part of the AA tale where your wife leaves a bottle of vodka on the kitchen counter, completely unaware of your position on the rocky road of alcoholism. You watch the bottle all through dinner, not exactly wanting to drink it right now, not exactly knowing you're going to drink it in a few hours, just conscious that it's there, the possibility of a glass. A glass is just a glass, and it doesn't have to become two. It doesn't have to become three. It's not an addiction; you're in control.

Kris is not an addiction, exactly, but he's something Matt thinks he can give up until he has a sip of it, and when he's touching or kissing or doing anything to Kris, he can't figure out why that's a bad thing, why he should get out of something that feels so fantastic.

What's going on right now is Matt just saw Kris walk by the hallway, sulking about the disaster that his performance in the pit was, and Matt can't help but want that, because it's not something he's had yet. It's _new_. If he's reading Kris right, Kris needs to release tension, and whenever Kris has had to release tension before, he's gone in nails first, teeth second, everything else later.

It's such a cliché, but when he gets back on his feet, slides his hands into his pockets and starts walking, he wants to get bitten. He wants Kris's quasi-wolfish fangs to sink in somewhere inconspicuous and draw blood, and it doesn't take Matt long to catch up with Kris, drag him into an empty room—which, among a lot of possibly breakable material, has a couch—and back him up against the door. Matt smirks down at him, fists unclenching from Kris's shirt and leaping to unbutton it, and Kris looks like he's holding back anger, like he'd actually growl if he had a little less self-control.

"I don't think we should be doing this here," Kris points out, sounding calmer than Matt would like him to, but contradicting his statement by unfastening Matt's pants.

Matt slides Kris's shirt off his shoulders and says, "I think you should bite me." Kris snorts, and Matt practically stares him down, taking in a deep breath. "Literally."

"Seriously?" Kris says, for the sake of argument. "That's such a cliché," but his fingertips are already pressing bruises around Matt's hipbones and pushing him toward the couch, and Matt gets rid of Kris's jeans and underwear on the way over.

When they get there, Kris says, "Have you really thought this through?" and Matt says, a little abashed, "Uh, you know I never do," but he still manages to find lube and condoms in the back pocket of his discarded pants, and Kris manages to half-lie down, half-sit back and work his knees over Matt's shoulders in a way that allows him to bite any stretch of Matt's upper body if he so wishes while Matt fucks him into the couch.

Kris picks a spot near Matt's wrist and starts nibbling his way up, stopping when Matt starts using God's name in vain to bite on his upper arm, just below his shoulder, and drag skin down with his teeth. There's still self-control there, in the way Kris licks and sucks on his flesh, but everything else screams aggravation, from the way his upwards thrusts are making the couch teeter, to his nails somehow reaching and sinking into the back of Matt's thigh.

When Kris comes, he also gets the chance to rip two layers of tapestry off the corner of the couch, so the physical arrangement, overall, works out. Unless by "work out" you mean "pull Matt's life together again", in which case, no, it doesn't work out at all.

-

 

Matt both loves and hates that absolutely everyone, from Simon Cowell to that really cute pigtailed girl who brings his dad in sound editing flashy cupcakes an hour into every show, knows about his thing with Kris.

Loves it because: when he feels like he's screwed up his performance, or at least it's turned out worse than he was hoping it would, he can lie down on one of those beautiful, beautiful couches in the contestants' lounge room with the door open and everyone talking around him, and Kris will just come to him. They don't have to make plans or meet in the middle or look for each other, and they don't have to hide.

He'd be okay if Kris only felt comfortable being a presence next to him, or talking to him about nothing, or telling Matt he did okay, but Kris, private as he usually is, has no qualms about making out with Matt in front of people.

It wouldn't be like this if Mike hadn't chosen to provoke Adam until Kris decided Mike needed to be scarred for life, but now it's another part of them they share with everyone. It wouldn't be like this either if 'everyone' wasn't such a cool group; Matt lucked out pretty hard here, too. He hadn't thought about it, but these guys are like family now, and family in a good way—they've got each other's backs.

Kris walks in with a frown and looks straight at Matt as he passes the door, says, "Okay, that really sucked."

"Thank you," Matt says. He's not hurt. Well, maybe a little. He smiles to hide it, and Kris plops himself on the couch next to him.

"It really did," Anoop says, backing Kris up.

"Is this an intervention or something?"

"I'm gonna miss you when you get the boot," Anoop goes on.

"I'm gonna have to work around the freaking curfew when you get the boot," Kris whines, then turns to look at Matt, squints, and leans in to bite his earlobe.

"Hey," Matt complains half-heartedly.

"Shut up," says Kris, and proceeds to lick Matt's mouth open and straddle him until Matt acquiesces, holds onto his thighs and kisses back.

Chances are he likes the way everything misleadingly seems to click in his head when Kris acts like that better than he likes the making out itself, and it's some damned good making out.

Anyway.

He hates it because: Anoop leaves for two minutes and comes back around the time Kris slides off him to go to the bathroom, and he (Anoop) looks at Matt for a few seconds, gaping like a fish.

"That face doesn't become you," Matt deadpans.

Anoop sits—attacks a stool with his ass, more like—and cries, "Am I _seriously_ the last straight person standing here?"

"You're sitting down," Adam points out, not looking up from the magazine he's reading.

"Lil's monogamously married," says Danny, and goes back to his PSP. _That_ makes Adam look up and raise an eyebrow.

Lil makes a pleased face and says, "Thanks, Danny," and Danny just lifts his index and middle fingers like _yeah, no problem_, and that's that.

Matt gives up on making sense of Danny not fucking up on this before he even starts.

"So, FYI," Anoop says, "Kris's wife is adorable, and you suck. A lot."

"Uh. Okay, good to know?" Matt attempts. "Is it Matt Sucks Day or something?"

"No," Anoop says flatly. "When was the last time you talked to Misha?"

Matt shrugs, because he doesn't know what this has to do with anything. "I don't know, last week?" he ventures.

"She knows about you and Kris, right?"

"Yeah," Matt says, shaking his head, still not sure where Anoop's going.

"Do you know about her and Katy?"

"What about her and Katy?"

"Um, not to sound crass, but they're doing it."

Adam chuckles, and Danny perks up, ruining his nonchalance about being assumed gay.

This is too public for Matt's taste.

"I know you're being a girl about your thing with Kris having an expiration date and trying not to think about it, thus missing _all_ the details," Anoop goes on, "but you should fix a few things."

"Are you giving me relationship advice in front of everyone?"

"Yes," Anoop says flatly. "One, break up with your girlfriend. She's a babe. She needs to get herself out there, and you're not going back to that just to break her heart. Two, I really don't get why you're doing this to yourself in the first place, but you need to talk to Kris. Stuff like this doesn't work if you're not both on the same page. And three, yes, Kris's wife is doing Mishavonna, Danny, get over it, or go jack off somewhere else."

"I want to clap," Adam says distractedly, "can I clap?"

"This is way too public," Matt declares, actively trying to drown himself in the couch.

He also hates all the public making out because _sometimes_—usually when Kris gets wound up by his own song—Kris won't even bother closing the door before backing Matt into a room and running his hands all over him, and some PA will walk by and disapprove.

"Holy crap, get a room," Lisa from lighting says in one such occasion after _Falling Slowly_, and Kris smiles at her, doesn't even get a word in before she adds, "You sounded great tonight," and Kris smiles even wider, and she flushes, and what the hell, Kris isn't supposed to _flirt_.

"Thanks," Kris says sweetly, sounding more like himself, and then, "can you close the door, please," and Lisa from lighting does.

Kris doesn't even know her name.

"What was that?" Matt asks.

"Good manners," Kris says, and bites the thought from Matt's lips.

Kris's wife is _out there_, and not out there in the sense that this is an illicit affair and it's forbidden and Matt gets turned on by it, because he wouldn't be stupid enough to get into a situation like that, but in the sense that Kris's wife is in this building, like she is every single week, and Kris's wife has a _girlfriend_, and of course this kind of arrangement wouldn't work if Kris was the only one benefitting from it, but really, Mishavonna? Really?

"Yeah, really," Kris says against his mouth, sounding irritated. "Can you burn your Harlequin novels and pay attention?"

"I don't have any Harlequin novels," Matt muses. "I just deal with a lot of wistful drunks."

"Then burn them all instead," Kris snaps, and bites down on Matt's jaw.

"Ouch," Matt groans, but responds to the next kiss.

It doesn't make a difference, all of this.

Does it?

-

 

It doesn't.

Sometimes things have a way of working out in Matt's favor, though, and when he finally mans up and tells his girlfriend he probably should stop calling her that, she says, "I thought you stopped ages ago," and he figures, well, they don't even talk that much anymore, and they haven't fucked in over a month, it should have been obvious, and then she says, "Plus I'm seeing someone else, didn't I tell you that?"

"You probably did," Matt admits, a little abashed. "It may have slipped my mind."

"So if you thought we were still together, did you also believe you were cheating on me? You're such an a-hole sometimes," she says, but she doesn't mean it. Then she proceeds to explain how she'd taken the way Matt looked at Kris through a goodbye dinner where she was Matt's date as a cowardly type of dumping, and she'd stuck around because Idol was an interesting thing to experience from almost the inside.

It's not so much Anoop's crap relationship advice or the Mishavonna thing that make the difference, but the save, and not so much the save as the genuine affection that goes behind and after it, and how when Jack from wardrobe catches Matt staring at Kris and tells him to get a room—one-liner predictability has gone up the roof since Megan left—Matt realizes that Kris and he _do_ have a room, they've had one since Mike got eliminated. Even if Kris's stuff isn't there, there are enough clothes of his in Mike's former closet to make a point, and Kris sleeps in Matt's bed often enough for all the maids to have caught him there at some point and not bat an eye at it anymore.

Maybe Matt's been looking at it from the wrong perspective. He's not sure what the right perspective is, if there even is one, or how many things, exactly, he's been wrong about. When Matt loves someone—not when he likes someone or finds someone attractive, just when he loves someone, there's no use in lying about it—he gets terrier-y. It's not just a turn of phrase; it's something an ex-girlfriend said to him once. He gets clingy, and he thinks he hasn't clung onto Kris too much, he's consciously tried his best not to, but his usual chillness and attempts to make people laugh morph into a sort of eagerness to please that pretty much screws everything up. He doesn't say what he's thinking in case it will offend the other person, and the other person doesn't think there's anything wrong, and Matt gets paranoid, and then he gets clingy, and then the other person gently compares him to a small dog.

He's not proud of the simile, but again, the first step towards whatever is knowing your weaknesses, and Matt's learned about his the hard way, so he might as well take something positive from all the pain.

Next week is jazz week, is the thing, and Kris has no hand rhythm, which is weird considering he can play more than just one instrument, and Matt's torn between teaching him to snap his fingers in time with the music or asking him what the fuck is going on with his marriage. Matt would normally do neither, because he walks on tiptoes around things like this, and he walks on tiptoes around people who matter to him and aren't a sure thing, but it's Kris, and there's a double elimination this week, and if Matt doesn't tell him about the finger-snapping now and gets voted off tomorrow, he'll never forgive himself.

Matt gets horribly distracted looking at Kris's fingers, though, especially when Kris is playing guitar. When he says, "That sounds horrible," it's not just vague and mistimed, but it also makes no sense whatsoever, and has nothing to do with the issue Matt intended to address.

"That's because it's disco," Kris says, frowning. "Beginning stage. I'm turning this thing around degree by degree." And then Kris leaves his guitar aside and walks up to where Matt's leaning back against a wall. Matt's hands automatically leap to Kris's waist, fucking reflexes, and Kris says, "I'm having lunch with Katy," and Matt jumps at the chance to address _that_.

It's pathetic, actually. He opens with, "Right, yeah, so," which makes Kris raise an eyebrow, and then he says, "what _is_ up with that?" in a voice so high-pitched he wishes he could hit himself without letting go of Kris.

"Katy," Kris enunciates, like he's talking to a child, "as in, my wife, Katy." Matt blinks. "Did the save make you stupid?"

"No," Matt says, suddenly snapping out of his trance. "No. It's just weird. Why didn't I know about Misha?"

"You're not friends with Katy," says Kris.

"Everyone knows about—you know," Matt remarks, again with the vagueness.

"That's different," Kris says. "We're all kind of like family. Katy's just—she's not more private about this stuff, but she's not—she's _my_ wife."

"Anoop knew about Misha. _Adam_ knew about Misha, and I think they've talked twice."

"Adam's friends with Katy," Kris says. Matt's about to mention that he's not entirely sure why Adam of all people is friends with Katy when Kris adds, "You don't have to be friends with Katy. That's not the point."

"Is there a point? I feel like I should know something I don't. Like the _point_ of your whole marr—"

He stops because he's not facing Kris anymore—because Kris just dropped to his knees and yanked Matt's belt out of his pants. If this is Kris's way of ending this conversation, it's—well, it's working. Fuck. It's not like Matt can focus on feeling offended when Kris is on his knees, groaning, mouthing at Matt's dick through his underwear.

Matt's pants pooling around his ankles don't really give him a sense of dignity, either, even less so when Kris tries to push his thighs as far apart as Matt's half-naked state will let him, but that doesn't stop his dick from getting hard.

"Shit," Kris mumbles, "I'm sorry," and pulls Matt's boxers down, and Matt has no idea what Kris is sorry for, exactly, and vaguely hopes he remembers to ask later, when Kris's nose isn't smeared with pre-come.

Kris breathes over Matt's cock, and then he sucks the head into his mouth, struggling to keep his eyes open. It's hard to categorize someone's eyelid-closing, but Matt's in love with this type, the kind that happens when Kris is so overwhelmed he can't help but shut off one of his senses and concentrate on going _down_ on Matt, on what he can perceive with his mouth and his nose and the palms of his hands crawling up from Matt's knees, one of them wrapping lazily around the base of his cock, pumping in time with his mouth.

Matt can barely hear himself moan over the rush of blood in his ears. Kris slides his mouth off for a moment, looking up, eyelids fluttering and mouth red and shiny and dripping wet, like he knows exactly what this does to Matt, the _attention_, the abandon.

Matt's practically shaking when Kris swallows him down again, thumbs digging hard into Matt's thighs and hips and Kris's head bobbing up and down with intent, and Matt pants, "Kris, God, I'm so f—", can't get past the _f_ sound, and Kris sucks harder once and pulls off again, fast.

Kris's lids are shut, face contracting to hold himself back, control his lips from going back over Matt's cock of their own accord, and then Kris whimpers and Matt is done, completely fucking finished, eyes set on Kris's face and flickering open to see his come splashing over Kris's cheek, his chin, his open mouth.

When Kris opens his eyes, he licks the come off his lips, looking—ridiculous, distracted and stupid and so fucking hot Matt can't help but reach down to touch him, run his thumb along the tip of Kris's tongue until Kris blinks a few times, rapidly, and bites him.

"I don't think my marriage is working," Kris says, looking up with wide eyes, a hand vaguely rubbing his dick through his jeans and come on his cheeks. It's at once the hottest and the most absurd thing Matt's seen in years, but the absurdity wins out when Matt gives in and slides to the floor, groaning when his knees bend, processing what Kris just said.

"What does that," he attempts, swallowing, "that mean?"

Kris laughs, not really feeling it, wiping Matt's come off his face. "The point. The, uh, the _point_ is—well, it's not choosing when you can two things without one hurting the other."

"I assume by 'things' you meant 'people'," Matt remarks, not really feeling it either. It's kind of difficult to keep his eyes on Kris's face anyway.

"No, I'm pretty sure I meant 'things'."

Matt chuckles. It's really sad that he finds that endearing, that Kris feels the need to say stupid crap in the middle of a serious conversation in the middle of sex in the middle of another serious conversation. Absurdity's winning by a landslide.

Kris sighs, sounding pained. "She's—Katy's—she's—I think we're not—fuck," he gasps, the heel of his hand pressing down harder, and then he's doing up Matt's pants and dragging him up, out towards a bedroom, and Matt thinks he gets it, maybe. Knows what this all may mean, at least, and how he should understand it, and knows he's about to get fucked and will probably process this whole thing better once he's had a shower and a nap.

He completely forgets about the finger snapping. He figures Kris will make up for it in everything else.

-

 

He tells himself he's going to keep everything bottled up. It's Rat Pack week, it's a relief to have gotten this far, he's probably going home this week, or next week, and he can't let himself be affected by it, or by the sudden possibility of his relationship with Kris not necessarily hitting a dead end. There's no way he's making the finals, so all of this is just—icing. Icing and _My Funny Valentine_.

It's easier said than done, though, and landing in the bottom two with Adam feels much worse than being voted off two weeks ago. It's not the lack of hope, he doesn't think. He had that two weeks ago, too, and a deeper feeling of detachment, of total resignation. He thinks maybe what 'worse' means here is 'a lot more intense', but it feels horrible either way. It feels so horrible he's on the verge of tears, and it's fucking ridiculous that he can't come up with anything to cheer himself up. On a bout of courage he asks Adam, and Adam leans in to hug him and murmurs, "It's not unrequited, your thing with Kris is totally not unrequited," which gives Matt something to think about, something to hold him over until he sings and smiles like a gracious loser and—whatever happens afterwards.

Matt glances over at Kris before his song, and Adam presumably tells him what he told Matt, and Kris looks at him and shrugs, nods, and keeps to himself. It's categorizable. It's like things suddenly begin to click in Matt's head.

It's still weird to be physically further away from Kris now that they're supposed to be closer, though. It's odd because it must look like a fallout from the outside, and it's odd because, from the inside, it must look exactly like what it is: a really fucking personal thing, something Matt doesn't want to share with every member of the crew. He may know them, he may be on a first-name basis with them, but Matt wants this—whatever this is now, whatever he's been missing, whatever it will be when things settle—for himself. It's new, and it's not stable, but it makes this feel like—something. Some kind of stepping stone.

For what it's worth, it takes over the sadness.

_My Funny Valentine_ is not a coda. There's another million songs Matt could and would have chosen, but at this point one of the things he's thinking about regarding song choice is making sure the lyrics can't be misinterpreted to fit an elimination. _My Funny Valentine_ doesn't say anything, except, if you squint, that Matt appreciates the judges but thinks they should get a brain makeover and stop comparing him to Justin Timberlake. It could also say that he's not giving up on music despite the ugly face of the industry, which Matt thinks is taking it a bit too far, but would be fine with. Either way, it's not a symbolical coda, and it's a brilliant song.

Considering the lack of implications, he's not sure why Kara looks so pissed.

The point is, the night goes much better than it could have, and even if it hadn't, at least it's not a coda.

Maybe there doesn't have to be one.


End file.
